


Unhistoric Acts

by mortaltemples



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Family, Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Post-Canon, Reflection, al laughs at him (like always), brothers talking, ed's a dork who hasn't cottoned onto the fact he's allowed to drink alcohol yet, no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 15:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortaltemples/pseuds/mortaltemples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“So what you’re saying is, you’ve made alchemy our religion?” Al asked. Ed snorted. <i>Of course not.</i> </p>
<p>“What I’m saying is, there’s still so much to learn, and that keeps us grounded. And it helps us grow. And we’ll never have to give more than we want to, because everything we have, everyone we love, and have loved in the past, that’s all part of our plus one. That’s ours to keep.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unhistoric Acts

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. 
> 
> This fic is for tumblr user andromedasblacks (aka Saprina) for being a wonderful friend and for sharing in so many of my post-Promised Day headcanons! I love you lots!
> 
> Title from Middlemarch by George Eliot.

Ed set the bottle of whiskey down on the table.

“Granny gave this to me last month as a present for the book being published.” He said with a grin and pointed to the hefty volume on the table. Al chuckled slightly.

“You do realise that we’re adults, right? And that we’re perfectly allowed to drink as much alcohol as we like. There’s no danger here.” He teased his brother lightly.

Ed rolled his eyes.

“I know _that_. I’ve just been saving it, that’s all.” He said, slightly embarrassed. Al read between the lines - _I_ _’ve been saving it for when my baby brother came to visit_. It was hard to tease Ed when he was on the verge of being sweet. When he was in full-blown ‘yelling declarations of undying devotion at Winry’ mode, then it was almost impossible not to tease him a little, but the almost-sweetness was such a rare thing, Al never had the heart to perform  his brotherly duty.

“Go get us a couple of glasses, then.” Al said. Ed poured out a shot each for them. Al sniffed the drink. Not that he needed to, he was pretty sure May could smell it all the way from Xing.

“Ready?” Ed said with a grin. Al nodded, no point in delaying it after all. “Go!”

The whiskey ran hot down his throat. They both immediately started coughing.

“Was Granny trying to kill you?” Al spluttered. Ed shook his head.

“I actually kind of like it. It burns in a good way.” He said. Al stared incredulously. “Well, at least I think I like it more than you do.”

Al tapped the book in front of him.

“So why now?” He asked. Ed shrugged.

“I hadn’t finished writing it before.” Al rolled his eyes. Sometimes his brother could be so impossible. Silence fell between them. Ed hadn’t changed that much physically, since Al last saw him a few weeks after Michael was born. His hair was a little better trimmed, a result of Winry not having to contend with a pregnancy, running a very-much in-demand automail workshop and looking after her husband all at once. She had chirped at dinner that Michael was a lot less of a hassle than Ed was when he was little. Ed had flicked some mashed potatoes at her in response.

“I just had other things I wanted to do before. I was traveling for a few months, and then there was the wedding, and then Winry got pregnant. We had other things going on, that’s all.” Ed said, far more seriously this time. Al nodded. It made sense to him, though he still found it slightly odd to hear Ed say _we_ when referring to he and Winry, rather than the three of them, or even just the two brothers.

“Why did you want to write a book, anyway?” Al asked. Ed breathed out slowly.

“I’d thought a lot about it - about what I could offer in writing one. I thought about the promise we made, before going East and West, of finding out as much as we could in order to help others. And I still want to do that, I’ve got a short trip I want to do to Creta in a couple of months. But I also wanted to write this one - talk about what I know _now_. You know? Start giving that extra bit.” He said that last part wryly. Al was slightly confused.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

“Have you forgotten?” Ed asked, smiling gently.

“Forgotten what?” Ed tapped the book in front of him. Al took a moment to think about the title. _Sustainable Alchemy and the Growth of the Self_. They joke around, but Ed was always over-protective, preparing for a life that they didn’t even know they’d get to see. He always wanted exactly what he has now, even if other issues took priority for a while. But even knowing that, Al couldn’t help but feel an enormous amount of pride towards his brother. He’s grown so much - they both have. The Ed of five years ago would never have written this book, and wouldn’t have understood its importance either. Much like the Al in the armor couldn’t have imagined even one tenth of what he’s done now.

“Equivalent exchange. Plus one.” Ed said. Al furrowed his brow, then laughed. He couldn’t help it. His brother might have grown, but he was still so _easily_ blinded by himself.

“Well, that was the beauty of the principle, wasn’t it? It’s more flexible, so long as you give something of yourself. You’ve chosen to participate in it like this - here in Risembool with Winry, and now you have Michael, and you’ll probably have more kids when the time is right. You have a beautiful life here, Ed. You have room to think and breathe and write books like this. And it’s worth it. But I’m not you. My enactment of the principal looks different to yours. Mine is about…healing. And learning. And healing through learning!” Al’s eyes got brighter as he went on. He brought his hands up to look at them in the light, they were so much stronger now than they were five years ago. It felt like a lifetime.

“I’m twenty-two years old. In that time, I’ve learned so much about alchemy and alkahestry, but it doesn’t even feel like I know a fraction of all that there is. I’ve barely scratched the surface. I know you feel the same way.” He smiled at his brother. Ed grinned.

“I know that. The gate didn’t take my curiosity. Look, the way I see it - I’ve got all this stuff I wanna know about. I started thinking about it in the book, about what makes an equivalent exchange in the first place, especially when you’re dealing in abstracts. How did the Truth decide what to take from us? Nothing seems to have a set price. And the people doing the sacrificing are never asked what they’re willing to give up.” His grin lengthened into a smirk “I was probably the first to do that.”

Al rolled his eyes. Maybe his brother hadn’t changed that much.

“I mean, I still don’t really know what I’m talking about. I don’t think any of us do. Not even Teacher. But all of that, all the running around, the danger, constantly weighing up the risks of transmutations, when I’m with you, and Winry and Michael - I don’t miss it. I honestly don’t. Sure, the perks of the job were kind of cool, but I still have the reputation of being the youngest state alchemist to both sign up and retire. I’ve given up all I was willing to, now I get my plus one. But when are you going to get that?” Ed said.

“I’ve already got it. “ Al said. “I am happy. I travel all across Xing with May. She teaches me so much, and we learn from the people we meet too. Your plus one’s been found here, in the safety of home. Mine is...it’s a work in progress - always moving, never perfect, but that doesn’t make it any less rewarding.”

Ed chewed his lip for a moment, and his breathing got quiet. Normally, everything about him pushed outward. He was loud, his gestures were big and he hid very little. So when he withdrew, Al had learned many years ago sitting at the table in a very similar kitchen to this one, it meant that Ed was thinking very, very hard.

“It’s like a mirror.” He said finally. “We’re on opposite sides of it, feeling the same things, but with different causes. I touch the skin on my right hand here, you feel the Summer breeze in your hair there.” Al nodded. It wasn’t like his brother to get sentimental, but he couldn’t help but be charmed by the way Ed got caught up in his thoughts.

 Ed laughed softly which seemed to bring him back to himself. When he looked at Alphonse, Al actually felt his eyes on him. “I always thought that just by living on, and continuing to love, and grow, and meet new people, and help Winry, I was living in accordance with equivalent exchange plus one. I’ve been spreading our theory just by living it. I guess you’re doing the same.”

Al’s eyes hazed over slightly. _He was proud._ His big brother was so proud of him. Al had always known this, they were and still are each other’s best friends, no one else, other than maybe Winry, can truly understand what they went through for those long years. But it was nice to hear it, or as close as Al would ever get with a brother who never learned how to talk about love in anything other than the most vague, conceptual of senses, every now and again. To have the chance to return that love, to continue to grow and learn alongside his brother - nothing could be better, or mean more to him.

“Just by continuing on, after we tried to bring mom back” Al said quietly. “That’s when we beat it, isn’t it? The old equivalent exchange. We got what we paid for, and we carried on. We continued to take from the world when we shouldn’t. We met new people, and cared for them, and learned from them. And we taught them too. That’s how it worked. But to have the chance to do that, to be able to move forward, that required the world giving us something extra - that reassurance that we were loved and supported. And that’s how we did it. We’ve been living in accordance with our principal all along - it just took us a while to figure that out.”

“It’s like what I talk about in the book.” Ed said. “Alchemy isn’t just - it’s not just a science. There’s something more there. It’s our choices brought into the physical world.” Al had noticed earlier that evening how Ed had developed the habit of playing with the gold ring on his finger when he was nervous, why he should be nervous simply talking to Al was beyond him, nevertheless, he still reached for it. “I used to think that the science aspect of it was my only anchor. It was logical, and consistent. Until it wasn’t. We don’t know everything, and we don’t fully understand alchemy. We never did, not even that night on that island Teacher made us stay on. And that’s a good thing, I think. It leaves more stuff to be discovered and, I guess, it keeps us humble. The unknown is what anchors us.”

“So what you’re saying is, you’ve made alchemy our religion?” Al asked. Ed snorted. _Of course not._

“What I’m saying is, there’s still so much to learn, and that keeps us grounded. And it helps us grow. And we’ll never have to give more than we want to, because everything we have, everyone we love, and have loved in the past, that’s all part of our plus one. That’s ours to keep.”

They both got quiet after that. Al listened to the soft crackling of the fire in the corner, the faint sound of Winry snoring upstairs and the soft ticking of the clock. These were the sounds that formed Ed’s every evening. Maybe after spending so long awake, Al would block out those sounds, shut down as much as possible in order to feel like he was sleeping, but they barely seemed familiar to him now. His nights were punctuated by insects chirping, languages he doesn’t understand and the soft snickers of his camp-mates, whoever they may be that night, sitting near the fire talking and drinking late into the night. That sounds far more like home to him now. People change and sometimes you lose what anchored you before. But it never goes away completely. It just fades into slightly unfamiliar background noise. Not if you keep your ties, your relationships, your loved ones. They burned down their house but they made their own home with other people. What could be better than that?

Ed poured them both another shot of whiskey. Al’s nose scrunched up at the smell. He was none too keen to repeat the experience.

“I think I’ll pass.”

Ed smirked and swirled the liquid around in his glass. He clearly took joy in the fact that he could handle something his brother couldn’t.

“C’mon, Al. It’s a rite of passage or whatever. Two shots of whiskey before and after some alchemy? Or, I don’t know, philosophy in our case, I guess. Make our ancestors proud.”

Al rolled his eyes.

“You mean our paternal grandparents?” He said. Ed snorted.

“Yeah. I’m still not quite used to being that closely related to what’s, y’know, an ancient civilisation.” They both took a moment to contemplate the implications of that - alchemy isn’t just an interest for them. It’s not just a trade. It’s in their identities, their true inheritance from their father. _Whatever his other failings, he gave us that_ , Al thought. He looked at his brother - Ed was frowning. Al briefly wondered if Ed woke up each morning, promising to himself that he’ll be a better father to Michael and any other future children he and Winry may have than their father was to him. But he dismissed that thought rather quickly - no matter his motivations now, Ed was always caring and protective and so, so loving. He felt every single bruise Al got as a child as if they were his own. It was probably a big brother thing.  In any case, even thinking of their father, and what he gave them made Al wonder about all that he and Ed were going to do from now onward. Five years ago, he was a soul inside a suit of armor preparing to save the world, now he travels parts of that world he had never even dreamed of seeing, as a man, learning and growing in so many different ways. And he’s an uncle! An uncle. So much had changed. And he couldn’t wait to see how things would change from here on out.

“Go on, then. One last nightcap.” Al smiled.

Ed raised his glass. “Well, to our grandparents from long ago, then.” He said. Al’s glass gently chimed against his.

“And to days to come, as well.” Al added.

“And to days to come.” 


End file.
